These differences in conclusions indicate that the national wealth is very strongly concentrated with a few persons, and that in order [SN: WEALTH IN THE HANDS OF FEW.] to obtain the nominal average of $148 worth of wealth to every poor person, one has to move the line of division of wealth so far up toward the wealthy few as to include nearly all the people among the masses of the poor. While, without this unfair moving of the line, more than 30-millions of the population would have no real wealth at all. For $56,907,454,798 worth of the wealth actually belongs to one-eighth of the population, or to 7,827,782 individuals, including men, women and children. And among these, we are told, “1 per cent of the population held more wealth than the remaining 99 per cent held together.”[25] So that the day is not far off when these 99 per cent of the people shall absolutely depend upon the 1 per cent of the rich and far reaching. Regarded as the Logical Premises of the life of the nation, this extremely unequal distribution of wealth cannot be other than extremely dangerous for the existence [SN: THE SITUATION IS DANGEROUS FOR THE FUTURE.] of the nation as it is, for the logic is inexorable: Whatever you have sown, that shall you also reap, is a saying that cannot be mistaken either by the wealthy or the poor. The situation indicates that this apparently polished nation presents only an enormous working mechanism, made not of steel and iron, but a mechanism of wood, which may be broken into pieces at any future time, in consequence of any insignificant occasion, if it continues to work heedlessly on with a wrong speed against itself. A rational regulation of its speed is absolutely necessary, in order to save it from an otherwise unavoidable destruction. A civilized nation cannot live long without a highly intelligent regulation of all its working principles. For, to live a national life is not to play a childish game. Yes, we have examined the above conclusions, but we have not realized the entire truth of the situation. For we were told that, [SN: THE SITUATION IS WORSE THAN INDICATED.] “Less than half the families in America are propertyless,”[26] which clearly means that the distribution of wealth among the people is much worse than we have a right to suppose upon the basis of the stated conclusions of 1890. As these conclusions differ from each other in contents, we have the moral right to re-examine the varying statistical tables that testify of the same distribution of wealth. And we have a right to find the naked truth in the mass of materials we have, and to look it straight in the face, if we can.